It is always nice reading your posts. You are a great friend and a kind sister. I do love your kindness and care. Thank you very much for reading and posting. Thank you once again for your positive words. I am proud of you.

Happy New Year to you and to your family! I wish you lasting happiness and success. I hope 2014 will bring happiness and prosperity to all people, specially to you.

Welcome to this thread and thank you so much for reading the posts and putting comments. Thank you once again for joining us. I hope we will help each other with practicing English through writing. Please do not hesitate to write in this thread. I am sure, my friends and I will welcome your posts with open arms. Please participate in discussion.

The Islamic calendar is reckoned from the time of migration (Hijra) of Prophet Mohammad (Peace Be Upon Him) from Mecca to Madina. At the first night of Rabi al-Awwal, twelve years after the outset of his Divine Mission, the Holy Prophet migrated from Makkah to al-Madenah, This was considered as the starting point for Islamic year ,but it was changed to month of Moharam. Some people believe that this changing was happened at the time Ammar Khatab , and some people say that it was changed at the time of Bani Omaieh era .I would like to congratulate my Muslim friends for coming of Rabi al-Awwal, I should say happy new year to people who use Islamic calendar.

Last night I had an online English class with an American teacher on Skype. Actually, the accent of teacher was American, I am not sure about his nationality. He says he lives in America. Anyway, forget where he is from, that's not a big deal. At class time, I was chatting with Elham. I asked her to take part in the class and she kindly agreed.

It was great to be with Elham in a class. I really enjoyed it. Elham speaks English fluently, nicely, and beautifully. She has got a very beautiful accent. Her accent was better than the teacher's accent, that's to say, she speaks English like native speakers. To be honest, I felt jealous of her English! Elham was impressive, that is why I am impressed with her way of speaking English, and that is why I am writing these things(I might not write! ). I hope she will help me with speaking English.

My accent is not good. It is a bad mixture of Azerbaijani, Farsi, and British English! Sometimes, I record my voice and play it. I hate listening to my own voice. I speak like a robot. My voice isn't soft! What should I do?

That's very kind of you to write those compliments on my speaking. You've exaggerated about it.

You know, I even don't remember when I had last spoken English. It was a long time I hadn't spoken. I was stressed If I can speak, but luckily I could put some words together and make some meaningful sentences.

My accent is good, I like it myself , but my knowledge of English is poor, good accent is worth nothing without being able to talk!

Your English is great. You can easily express yourself, your knowledge of English is really great.To be honest I'm jealous of your English.Your accent is not bad at all! It's not perfect but it's not bad.

And as we both know, what matters is English itself not accent. The first important thing while evaluating some one's English is his ability to makes right sentences and get his message across. Accent comes next. So we come into this conclusion that you are the winner

By the way, I'd be so glad if we could come to a deal, what? To combine your great knowledge of English and my accent and make sth PERFECT. Deal?

Moroo wrote:I learned from the countries who forced the people to do something that it makes the opposite result.

Hi Moroo,

It is nice hearing from you. Thank you very much for following us.

I wish you had written clearly which countries force people to wear Hejab, and what is meant by 'opposite result'.

Moroo wrote:Most of Muslims caring about how they and their families look ( hejab, beard, Jilbab,…etc) but they don't even think about the most important thinks which is inside not outside.

What is that important thing inside?

Fortunately, Hejab is clearly stated in the holy Koran; [نور/31], [احزاب/59], [نور/30], [احزاب/53]. What people do or believe cannot change the opinion of God about something. When it comes to making decision about important matters, God isn't democratic. He doesn't care about the nature or the habit of people. If all people in the world get naked and support nudism God will not change His opinion about Hejab!

I respect your views and other friends' views, but we have to take everything into consideration before making our judgement. We have to carefully consider the facts. For example, we have to think about these questions: 1) What has caused some people to get interested in gay marriage? 2) Where is the origin of HIV and what makes it epidemic in the world? 3) What destroys or threatens the foundation of families in all nations? 4) We(men and women) are human beings, why do women have a tendency to put their bodies on display? 5) Who makes decision about the amount of body someone can put on show? 6) What are the negative and the positive sides of nudism?

Elham wrote:I'd be so glad if we could come to a deal, what? To combine your great knowledge of English and my accent and make sth PERFECT. Deal?

Hi Elham,

Many thanks for being complimentary about my English knowledge. That's very kind of you to say good things about my English. I welcome your suggestion with open arms. That's very generous of you to offer the deal I am looking for. Thank you very much indeed.

I am very much interested in making the deal you have announced. I am ready to sign it if you are serious. This is a golden opportunity for me, and I know such opportunities seldom knock the door twice.

Happy to see you here and happy to read your words... It has been a long time since we chatted together, I really miss you and miss our old relationship.. I don't know what happened but I know that we still care and love each other! I even don't know if you wrote some off msgs to me but if you did, I got nothing!

Dear, today, I feel that I want to write something to you, I don't care about what I going to write or if it was connected to each other or to the subjects which you wrote or not, I will just write what comes to my mind, so forgive me it you get nothing.

First of all, let me tell you about my days and my life. The electricity was off for days, it's like heaven here, right?!

I feel that I am not alive! I feel that there is nothing interesting in this world so I just sleep, I don't want to wake up to do nothing!!!! What a waste of time!

I agree with your idea about LOVE. I especially liked this sentence "Love is beautiful and makes life worth to live".

in fact love is something great and it's a mercy from god, it shows the best in people. But, sadly, Human beings spoiled it and changed its meaning and started to foolish each other under the name of "love"!

Emm, I still believe that there is pure love which isn't just for having babies or to make men and women have s.. No, but just some pure feelings and emotions..

However, it need two pure lovable hearts not like love these days when someone loves too much and the other loves too little.

About giving our opinion or judge about things, I think that people judge about sth from there point of view or what they are interested in and it doesn't matter if they are experts or not..

Above that, we should consider the aim behind watching a movie or reading a book.. For example, someone would watch a movie to have fun so they can judge if the movie was funny or not. Meanwhile, another person is watching it to have romance feelings so they judge it if it was romantic, and so on..

Last week while chatting with some friends, they recommended an

historical series to me and said that it is a very good one. However, I told them that I am not interested in historical series so I wont watch such thing no matter how much people say that it was good..

In other words and to make my words clear, that judgment isn't an absolute thing, it's change from person to person according to their culture and interests...

Oh Dear, I read your and Behnam's posts', I really envy you! I wish I could be with you! Although neither my accent is good nor my English! BUT! Hearing your voice and chatting with you both!! Ohhh my god!!!! It would be the best thing ever happen to me!

Happy new year to you. Sorry for being late in reply, please forgive me! I really love your friendship too and hope to read more from you, you don't believe how much hearing your voice and chatting with you on Skype made me happy!

Dear, I had the same experience as you with the private school, it really takes the person's time and life. It takes you from the people you love.. Sadly, this is life and we should tolerate it. Wish you the best with your work and inshallah you will get the job you wish one soon...

Amal: It was very nice reading your posts and hearing about you. I am waiting to read more.

Morteza: Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii, you made me really happy. Thank you very much for keeping the contact.

To all friends: Finally, by the grace of God, I got accepted to start a PhD in a city in Azerbaijan province. I love that city, the people, the friendly atmosphere of the university, and above all my subject; Photonics. By God's grace, I am going to overcome all possible difficulties and make a splash in the university.

I'm very glad that you are accepted in a Ph.D. program; especially the one that you love! I don't know what Photoncis is, but I can guess it is something about light!! (Am I right?)

I think, for Ph.D. students and researchers to be successful, it is very important not to have issues that cause distraction to them. For example, if one needs to work for hours to make money to resolve his financial problems, then he may have some difficulties to finish his scientific project. To me, teaching is an issue! I need (and have to) teach at least 20 hours a week. This sometimes prevent me to focus on the subject I am researching on.

I know that you will not have any of these issues during your studies, and if you would face a problem, you would overcome it (as you wrote above).

The murderer of thousands innocent civilian people Arial Sharon went into hell , and bring happiness to millions of hearts. But it is really shameful that the head of governments sent messages and expressed their condolences to his family and Israel.

What they want to tell the people of the world, what is hidden in these messages, they want to say that a person who kill thousands of innocent people is a warrior, a messenger of peace, because he has guaranteed our benefits and the human rights should be suffocated in the situations which support our benefit

The head of governments who expressed condolences, exposing their complicity in the crimes of this ~ mass murderer. Supporting Sharon to did his criminal for many years.

Despite of this, what a piece of filth he was that no heads of state dared to attend his funeral.. though there will be a rogues gallery of ex-heads of state,chief amongst them yet to be charged war criminal Tony Blair

How are you my friend? It is a very long time since our last communication! I really miss you.

The story of Palestine and the creation of Israel is very sad. If I am not mistaken, year 1947 is called Nakba by the Arabs. That was the year when Israel came to the existence. I have seen a lot of documentaries related to the history of Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In one movie, particularly, there was an old Jewish woman that claimed the land of Israel (Palestine) is given by God to Jewish. She also argued that because this holy land is originally owned by Jewish, there is no surprise why Arabs have not been successful in making a state on it! She lives in her home made on a high hill. When the reporter asked her why she lives there, she replied controlling high areas makes give them more power to dominate the whole land!

I have no idea how to resolve this problem! I can just hope that one day all Palestinians come back to their home and live with peace.

In fact, there are some common things between our tradition and yours. However, what caught my eyes the most is the "pilgrimage to Mecca"!

I wish our Mehr included it, if my husband took me to Mecca, I would never ask him for anything else!

Dear, I didn't understand this part: "6- The ownership of a house or a part of a house should be officially given to girl." But why he would give her a house??! And isn't it too expensive? What if the boy himself didn't have a house? Or in other words, he can't afford it?!

What I had understood from Behnam's post that the boys' families give nothing to the girls or only girls' families should give boys dowry to marry their girls! But now I have understood the matter clearly.. I have get that their are two parts and both should give sth.

Above that, if the girls will take a house, it's normal to pay some money for the furniture! isn't it?! "Just kidding"

In the past and even in other different parts of Syria till now, we have the same customs like you. We have Mehr and Jehas.

But here in Damascus, girls take "Jehas" to their new houses too but not all the item which you recommended in your post, just some clothes and the necessary things for themselves. Emm, meanwhile, all furnitures and kitchen things, the boys' family should bring them..

In my idea, marriage is really something important because it gather two strange families together which have different manners. And the most important thing more than money and material things is to have an agreement between them and between the girl and the boy...

How are you? How is your life? I hope you are all fine and enjoying your life.

How can we enjoy our life? This is a very important question, although it sounds like a philosophical one. If we focus on ourselves to know who we are(to know ourselves well), then we will know what to follow in order to enjoy our lives! How to know ourselves? This is extremely difficult! The majority of us don't know ourselves! We are doing some activities, yes, of course, but those activities are done automatically. We eat, drink, sleep, etc. These activities are all relevant to our nature. A stupid person may eat or drink more than a genus one! In other words, knowledge of ourselves is different from our natural instinctive actions or reactions.

People are different. They have different attitudes towards life. They do different activities to enjoy their lives. This is a fact!

To Mortaza: Thank you very much for your post. I wish you success in both teaching and doing the researches. I agree with you. In many cases in life, we have to follow the limitations. We have to obey some rules, although they may seem ridiculous. We are born with some basic needs that we cannot get rid of them. For example, we have to eat something, no matter we are a God's messenger, or a very famous scientist, or an ordinary person. We have to earn money, because fulfilling those basic needs cannot be performed without money! Nothing is wrong with working! However, some of us are obligated to work and work and work! We are forced to work all days in order to fulfill our needs! This is disgusting! I hate it! We have to be given enough time to do something for relaxation and fulfillment of our spirits' needs! However, unfortunately, we are forced to ignore these important features of our lives!

To Elham: Thank you very much for your friendly message. It touched my heart! Please write more. I love reading your posts.

To Amal:

[amal] wrote:What I had understood from Behnam's post that the boys' families give nothing to the girls or only girls' families should give boys dowry to marry their girls! But now I have understood the matter clearly.. I have get that their are two parts and both should give sth.

What you had understood from my post that boys families give nothing to girls' families, but girls' families give dowries to boys is, fortunately or unfortunately, true! On the other hand, what you have understood from dear Mohsen's post, despite the fact that he had written a wonderful post about dowry, is wrong!

I am sure, my dear friend Mohsen will explain 'عندالمطالبة' and 'عند الاستطاعة' to you clearly. I guess you are confused!

How are you my friends? I hope everything is alright. I believe we have already had some conversations to each other. Since I have not written here for a long time, I think it is more convenient if I quickly introduce myself to help you remind of me!!!

My name is Mortaza (of course) and I am teaching math in a university as a full-time professor. I love my job (teaching math) although the students, these days, are not very much interested in hard studying and learning math. I have just marked their final exam, and the majority of them are under 10 (of 20). So I have to, somehow, normalize the scores so that an acceptable portion of the class pass the course!!! Do you know what I mean?!

Anyway, I'm married, I have two children (my son 9, and my daughter 5), and I don't know what else I should say!